S.Korea seeks to restore volume of int'l flights to pre-COVID-19 levels

Resuming flights from Incheon International Airport to and from Prague, Czech Republic, and Zurich, Switzerland, to expand its air traffic, South Korea by September seeks to raise the volume of global flights to 90% of that in 2019, the year before the COVID-19 pandemic broke out.

South Korea's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport on Sunday said it will expand international flights from 179 routes spanning 3,325 weekly flights as of this week to 204 and 4,075 by September. This measure is a follow-up to a government plan released on Wednesday to stimulate domestic consumption.

The ministry seeks to attract foreign tourists by resuming operation of and adding flights to major international routes and relaunching stopover tours.

The plan is to restore operation of Northeast Asian routes to 88.8% of 2019 levels by focusing on recovering air traffic to and from Japan and China, which account for half of South Korea's international routes. In February, flight volume in the region was just 35.7% of that of the same month in 2019.

First, the Incheon-Narita (Tokyo) route will see a boost from 144 weekly flights to 168 and Incheon-Osaka, Japan, from 143 to 168. The routes of Incheon-Prague (three to four per week), Incheon-Zurich (three), Incheon-Madrid, Spain, (three) and Gimhae, South Gyeongsang Province-Kaohsiung, Taiwan, (seven) will be resumed after their suspension in 2020 in the wake of the pandemic.

Two new routes are Incheon-Newark, New Jersey (four) and one connecting Gimpo International Airport in Seoul to Daxing International Airport (seven) in Beijing, China.

Routes to and from South Korea's provinces such as Gimhae-Beijing; Daegu-Shanghai, China; Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province-Osaka; and Muan County, South Jeolla Province-Shanghai will also see resumption by the first half of the year. Through these boosting measures, the number of flights to and from Northeast Asia is expected to recover to 89% of 2019 levels, Southeast Asia 91%, the Americas 92% and Europe 97%.

Write to So-Hyeon Kim at alpha@hankyung.com